7 Things I Wish I Knew About Productivity Earlier

Arshian

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Transcript

00:00Hey friends, welcome back to the channel. So this is one of my favorite books. It's called

00:03Someday is Today and it's filled with incredibly actionable, helpful, practical advice for

00:09achieving more of the things we want in life. It's written by an incredible guy called Matthew Dix

00:13who has survived three near-death experiences including a ridiculously bad car crash and also

00:18being held at gunpoint at the age of 22. And these experiences forced him to reconsider what he was

00:23doing with his life and what he achieved. And he went from being someone who was completely broke,

00:26living in his car and working at McDonald's to becoming a best-selling author, world champion

00:30storyteller and award-winning journalist. I was sure that I was going to die that day and I will

00:35tell you that I did not feel fear or sadness or anger. The only feeling I was consumed with was

00:42regret. I was 22 years old and I had failed to do anything with my life that I had wanted to do.

00:48That was a quote from a podcast that I did with Matthew a few months ago, incredible episode. But

00:51in this episode of Book Club, which is the ongoing series where we distill and discuss highlights and

00:55summaries from some of my favorite books, I'm going to talk through seven actionable tips that

00:58I took from his latest book, Someday Is Today. These are seven tips that will help you achieve

01:01more of what you want in life. Let's get into it. Tip number one, the parking lot practice. So when

01:06I first started writing my book, Feel Good Productivity, I felt like I had to do it in the

01:10right environment. I felt like I had to go into a coffee shop and have my little latte next to me

01:14and my headphones on and I wanted the environment to be perfect. Otherwise, you know, for some reason

01:18I felt this writer's block and I felt like I couldn't do the thing. But Matthew's approach to

01:22this is completely different and his approach has actually changed the way that I approach my

01:25creative work. And I think you can get a lot of value from this as well. And one of my favorite

01:28quotes from the book is that productivity is not pretty. Now we've all seen those examples of like,

01:32you know, the students that are like doing the notes and like the most elaborate colorful method

01:36possible. We've seen those sketch notes. We've seen all these people with their like incredibly

01:40pretty desks and everything. And it just looks like such a productive vibe and it looks very

01:44pretty. But the point that Matthew is making is that true productivity does not have to look pretty.

01:49The example that he talks about in the book is where he was early for a dentist appointment and

01:52so instead of just sort of waiting in the car or like scrolling TikTok or whatever the thing was,

01:56instead of doing that he decided to just sit on the side of the road in the parking lot,

02:00get out his laptop and continue writing some more of the novel that he was working on.

02:03During World War I there were men in trenches wearing gas masks, artillery exploding over

02:08their heads and they were scribbling in little books in journals hoping that if they survived

02:13this battle and the many battles that were to come, someday they might publish something. So

02:17thank goodness that the writers of the 1910s did not require Starbucks smooth jazz and two-hour

02:25quiet blocks of time for them to get their work done. His point is that there's never going to be

02:30a perfect place or a perfect setting to get things done, especially when your life is chaotic,

02:34especially when you have kids. I don't have kids but he does and so he would know. And if you're

02:37always waiting for the right time or the right environment to be able to do a thing that propels

02:41your creative life forward or to do a thing that you really want to do, you're going to be waiting

02:44for a very, very, very long time. It's the same with eating healthily, it's the same with going

02:47to the gym, it's the same with building a business. The timing is never going to be right. The time is

02:52now, the time is never and the people who can take action on the things that they want to do, despite

02:56the imperfect environment, are the ones who ultimately succeed and ultimately move forward

03:00with what they want in life. Tip number two, the minutes mindset. So the point here is that when we

03:04plan out our day we tend to think in blocks of hours but thinking in hours can actually cause

03:09us to waste quite a lot of time. Now in the book he talks about this and this is one of my favorite

03:12stories in any book that I've ever read. He talks about how he was meeting up with a person who

03:17wanted to write a book and he was meeting up with her for breakfast. She met me at the McDonald's

03:21and she was late and so when she sat down I said tell me what your plan what you're doing and she

03:25started describing this book and then eventually I said as I always say to writers I say so how much

03:31have you written and so often almost always the answer is oh well I haven't started writing anything

03:36yet and I then I said to her I said well you were seven minutes late today and she said I'm sorry

03:42I'm so sorry I'm like no no my point was not that you were seven minutes late and I was upset

03:46my point was I used the seven minutes that you were late to write some sentences you know I turned

03:52my computer I said this is what I wrote in the seven minutes that you were late. And I just

03:56absolutely love this approach like after Matthew's near-death experiences he says that he realized

04:00the profound value of time and he didn't want to come to the end of his life with regret for failing

04:04to achieve the things that he actually wanted to do and so what he tries to do now is he tries to

04:08get the most out of every single minute rather than every single hour. I tell all of the creative

04:13people of the world 10 minutes is precious to you it doesn't mean in 10 minutes I can write a chapter

04:19in 10 minutes I can reread the last three paragraphs I wrote earlier today and see if

04:23they're okay and clean them up a little bit or I can write five good new sentences. And this is

04:28actually how I was able to grow this YouTube channel while I was working for two years full

04:31time as a doctor. This book hadn't come out yet but at that time I had a similar attitude in that

04:36in between patients or in my lunch break or in a random break here and there when I had a few

04:40minutes of time I would get out my phone or I would go on Notion on the Windows computers at work

04:44and I would just make a few more notes on a video that I was working on. And so what that meant is

04:48that in these little blocks of time here and there throughout the day where other people around me

04:51were scrolling TikTok on their phones or whatever in those moments I was writing more bullet points

04:55for a video or fleshing out some title ideas or figuring out a thumbnail. And in this context me

04:58and Matthew are absolutely not saying that there is no time for a break and that you should never

05:02ever recharge and relax. In fact my whole the whole final three chapters of my book Feel Good

05:06Productivity are all about the power of rest and relaxation to make things sustainable over time.

05:10But the way to think about this is that what do you find yourself doing in those pockets of time?

05:13Do you wait until it hits like five o'clock to be able to do something because you have to start on

05:18the hour? What if you just had three minutes or five or seven or nine minutes left? Could you do

05:22something intentional and effective and enjoyable with that time rather than wasting that time on

05:26scrolling whatever thing that you tend to default to? Oh and by the way one of the productivity

05:29tools that I use every single day that really helps me make the most of my time is what I call

05:33the year at a glance spreadsheet. It's basically a google sheet that has the entire year laid out

05:37and it's a way of visualizing the calendar that you just don't really get within calendar apps.

05:42And there's going to be a link in the video description where you can download this completely

05:44for free if you want a better way for planning your year as well. All right tip number three is

05:48the lily pad method. Now in the book Matthew writes that the only real failure for any creator

05:53is to stop making stuff. Now by making stuff it could be writing, it could be YouTube videos,

05:58it could be studying for your exam, it could be learning to code, it could be starting that

06:01business or working on your sales script. So you know there's all of this stuff is what I would

06:04call creative in some ways. But sometimes doing this stuff can feel really overwhelming especially

06:09with everything else going on in our lives. Especially if you have a big project that

06:12you're working on like trying to study for a massive exam or like trying to write a novel

06:15or trying to start a business and get it off the ground. There's often a lot of little steps

06:19involved in that thing but if you look at the whole thing it can seem like a mountain that

06:22feels very daunting to climb. Now normally the conventional path towards working towards our

06:26goals is to do things in sequence in order one at a time. But the lily pad method is kind of

06:30Matthew's approach to this which is to recognize that you don't actually need to start at the

06:33beginning and you don't need to finish at the end. You can in fact jump around. I think sometimes

06:37people see a goal or a dream as a linear process like A to B to C and I think that's always a

06:43mistake too. So I was working with someone yesterday who said I want to write a memoir

06:46and I said we'll start writing a memoir and she said I don't know where to start and I said do

06:51you have some good moments that you know you want to include she said oh yeah I said we'll write

06:55those she said don't you have to start a book at the beginning I said no you write something just

07:00write chapter 15 if that's what you can write today so seeing your dream as stepping stones

07:08but you get to touch whichever one you want at any point because you're gonna have to touch all

07:11of them eventually that's really helpful. So if you figure out what is the goal that you're trying

07:15to go for and then you break it down into these tasks but instead of seeing these tasks as things

07:19that you had that have to happen in sequence if you can think of them as almost like lily pads

07:23where you can sort of leapfrog around these different lily pads depending on your mood

07:26and depending on how you're feeling but then in those moments where you feel overwhelmed by a

07:29particular task or you feel like you don't have the motivation or the discipline or whatever you

07:32want to call it you can then just leapfrog to another lily pad and you can make progress in

07:36that direction. I also did an interview with writer Mo Gowdat who's written a bunch of books he's

07:39amazing he's like a world expert in happiness happiness research stuff like that but I asked

07:43him about his writing habit and how he managed to write so many books and what he said was that he

07:47always works on like five or six different books in parallel and so every day he spends a few hours

07:51writing. I wake up sometimes in the morning and I write for three four five hours. But every morning

07:56he asks himself which is the project that I feel most pulled right now to be working on and he just

08:01works on that one. I loved the journey of writing it I loved the journey of exploration I loved the

08:06analysis the research I loved the conversation I had with a friend to say does this make sense

08:10to you I love all of that and it's you know what it's it's hours of my life that are filled with

08:15joy. He's not forcing himself to stick to one particular project or one particular task in a

08:19way he leapfrogs around depending on how his energy is going on a particular day and so the

08:23question to ask yourself to take something away from this point is when it comes to the goals

08:27that I'm pursuing how might I be able to start in the middle with some of them rather than necessarily

08:31starting at the beginning and in moments where I feel overwhelmed with a particular task is there

08:35a way I can leapfrog that particular task and do something else that takes me towards my goals.

08:39Okay tip number four is the horizon habit. Now you've probably heard of smart goals which is

08:43goals that are specific measurable attainable or assignable realistic or relevant and a t for time

08:48bound but the problem with setting these sorts of goals is that often we can set them towards

08:52things that are actually outside of our control like if you want to start a youtube channel but

08:55you set a specific goal of hitting a million subscribers which is specific and measurable

08:59and time bound and all that kind of stuff it's a goal that's kind of out of your control and so it

09:02can be very demotivating trying to get there and so the way Matthew thinks about this is setting

09:06horizon goals instead and I really like this way of thinking about it because the way I think about

09:10goals is that goals are ultimately just a destination they don't actually help us get

09:14there they're just the destination and so horizon goals are just a way of taking the pressure off

09:18the idea of goal setting and explicitly allowing us to set a general vague directional goal that's

09:24like over there on the horizon but it's not really that specific. I like to identify that idea of I'm

09:29going to be a storyteller but that I'm going to be a storyteller also allows because it's on the

09:34horizon to be maybe I'll teach storytelling someday maybe I'll be a consultant about

09:39storytelling maybe maybe an advertising company will allow me to inject storytelling into their

09:44car commercials which is what I have done right all of those things are sort of on the storytelling

09:49horizon but it affords me the opportunity to be flexible in terms of what ultimately is going to

09:53happen. So if your goal is to be a musician you might think about all the other ways you can

09:57incorporate that dream into your career you could become a band member but you could also try

10:01songwriting or DJing or radio presenting you could learn how to produce music and become a technician

10:05or a background singer who picks up an event management job or a teacher or an online creator

10:09sharing insights into the music world all of these jobs are crucially on the music horizon but this

10:13flexibility gives you both freedom and also resilience which brings us to the next point in

10:17the book which is tip number five the piano precedent and there's a great quote from the book

10:21which is that five-year plans are inviting the universe to drop a piano on you basically if you

10:26try and meticulously plan out your life then it's inevitable that something is going to happen that

10:30will completely ruin your plans now that's not to say that planning is not important because making

10:34a plan is generally quite helpful and we've talked about setting a horizon goal as your destination

10:38so you can start working towards it and generally you know when I find people come to me for life

10:42advice and I ask them well what do you actually want they don't really have a vision of where they

10:46actually want to go and it's like that quote from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland if you don't

10:49know where you're going then any road will get you there but I just wanted to ask you which way I ought

10:53to go well that depends on where you want to get to oh it really doesn't matter as long as I can

11:03it really doesn't matter which way you go and there's a graph that I really like I think I

11:09think it's from Derren Brown's book Happy which is basically all about stoicism which is where

11:12you've got your plans on one axis and then you've got fate on the other axis and the path that your

11:16life takes is sort of somewhere in between these two things you're very unlikely to always be going

11:21in the same direction as your plans but equally having some sort of plan will allow you to not

11:24just be completely buffeted by the winds of fate and you'll be able to sort of chart your ship

11:29in those in those waters of fate tip number six the 100 year old plan now in Matthew Dix's thingy

11:35I think it's one of the early chapters in his book which I really liked which is that when you're at

11:38a crossroads in life try to imagine your 100 year old self and think to yourself what advice would

11:43my 100 year old self give to me right now now the example that he uses is where he's sitting at his

11:47desk and he's writing and he's got deadlines and he's got work and he's got stuff to do but then

11:50his son comes up to him and asks him to play tag now one option in that path is to continue with

11:55work because you've got to be disciplined and you can't be distracted and you've got to focus but

11:58then he thinks what would his 100 year old self want him to do and his 100 year old self is always

12:03going to say look ma'am go play with the kid because there's going to come a day where the

12:06kid no longer wants to play with you and you want to take advantage of the moments where the kid is

12:09actually keen to play tag with you now similarly Alex Hormozy's approach to this he calls it the

12:12Solomon project is when he does journaling but he imagines the journaling session as a conversation

12:17between him and his 86 year old self a practice that I started doing which is I have a coaching

12:21session with myself weird I have a conversation with my future self who's 85 and I ask him for

12:27advice on what I should do now and he knows that the 86 year old has context on where he is at

12:31right now and what his goals are and what he needs and he knows that the advice that the 86 year old

12:35gives him is going to be well the right advice and again there's so much value in this kind of

12:38thinking right because the more short term we think of our life trajectory and the more short

12:42term our decision making the more we tend to make decisions based on what's urgent rather than what's

12:47actually important honestly this is still something I really struggle with far too often when it's a

12:50choice between friends and work I'll think oh but work's really fun and I've got this deadline I've

12:54got you know I've got all this stuff and so I'll choose work when actually I know that my older

12:59self will have wanted me to choose friends or family or relationships or health in that moment

13:03and tip number seven is the purposeful approach now often when we talk about productivity and this

13:07is fundamentally a productivity book it's easy to default to thinking that productivity means

13:11work or hustling or business or money you know that kind of stuff but sometimes we need to take

13:15a step back and really think about why we want to get things done efficiently so when people say

13:19productivity sort of grinds you down I think of productivity as it's the thing that you want to

13:25be doing that you should be doing more of so let's maximize our life the things we have to do in order

13:31to sustain life in order to get to the things we want to do so we don't have to think of productivity

13:37in terms of work so the way I think of it is that I want to be making the most of my time

13:40not for its own sake or not because I want to maximize economic output but actually by making

13:45the most of my time it frees me up to be able to spend my time doing the things that truly matter

13:49to me and this is why Matthew is a big fan of what he calls soft goals which are things that

13:53aren't necessarily productive if you look at like the standard definitions of productivity

13:56but that are intentional and that are meaningful to us anyway so the action point here is figure

14:00out what are the soft goals that you want to aim for in life what are the things that like someone

14:04else looking at it might not think it's particularly productive but for you it's very intentional it's

14:08very satisfying and it brings you the sense of meaning and fulfillment I was talking to a client

14:12the other day and I said well what's your horizon goal and she said I want to see the 50 greatest

14:17movies of all time there's a list in the world I'd have the list and I want to sit on my couch

14:22and watch the 50 greatest movies she said but that doesn't feel super productive and I said

14:27that sounds incredibly productive to me because it's your dream let's make sure we maximize your

14:32work time your chore time let's take away all of those little black holes of your life that

14:38you're wasting and make sure that we use all that so you can get your ass on the couch more often

14:44with your husband watching black and white movies and so now if you can be really productive in the

14:47areas of your life like your work or like your studies or whatever the thing might be you free

14:51yourself up you unlock a lot more time and energy to be able to give to the things that truly matter

14:55to you now as you might know I am completely obsessed with reading productivity books which is

14:58why I ended up actually writing one link down below but if you're interested in my top insights

15:01from most of the productivity books I read check out this video over here which summarizes 107

15:06productivity books that I've read into a nine-step framework that you can use to level up your

15:10productivity and do more of the things that matter to you so thank you so much for watching and I'll

15:13see you hopefully in the next video bye

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